


Everything Is Broken Up and Dances

by rosa_himmelblau



Series: The Roadhouse Blues [8]
Category: Wiseguy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 11:33:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,663
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17766020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosa_himmelblau/pseuds/rosa_himmelblau
Summary: Who is Vinnie Terranova anyway, and why does Sonny think the cops are coming?





	Everything Is Broken Up and Dances

 

"Sonny."

 _Oh, shit, he's going to start whining again._ Sonny kept his eyes closed, saying nothing, hoping Vinnie would think he was asleep and go to sleep himself.

"I know you're awake."

_Yeah, but being awake doesn't mean I gotta answer._

"Sonny." For a second Sonny had the strongest, strangest feeling that Vinnie was going to ask if Sonny liked him, his voice sounded so needy. Instead he paused, sighed, said, "You want a blow-job?"

Sonny didn't say anything. There wasn't any answer to that question, it was too stupid. And then Vinnie asked it again.

"What is the matter with you?" Sonny asked, turning over, punching his pillow.

"You mean besides I'm going out of my mind?"

Sonny hated answers like that. "Yeah, besides that. **Obviously** you're going outta your mind."

"Nothing. I'm offering to give you a blow-job."

That was categorically crazy. "Is that what you said to your stepfather?"

"You mean, did I offer to suck Rudy off? No, I'm pretty sure I'd remember that—"

"About me." Sonny wasn't sure he could take much more of this conversation. "What did you tell him about me?"

"I don't think I told him anything about you." Vinnie sounded sincere. Did that mean he was lying?

"Then where did he get the idea you were ever in my bed?"

Vinnie didn't say anything.

"Come on, you've had plenty of time to come up with a good story, so let's hear it. Why'd you tell your stepfather you'd **ever** been in my bed?"

"I didn't. And I'm not telling you stories." Vinnie didn't sound sincere anymore, he sounded hopeless. Sonny didn't know what that meant either. "I didn't tell him anything, I was talking out of my head—"

A new idea came to Sonny. "Is that what you **wanted** —" Sonny couldn't quite wrap his mind around what he was feeling. He wanted to get up and hit Vinnie until this feeling went away, he wanted to break something, he wanted—

He got out of bed and started to pace the dark room, running into the bed almost immediately. The lights came on, blinding him even more thoroughly than the darkness had.

He couldn't keep his hands still. Sonny really wanted to punch something (Vinnie), break something (Vinnie), he couldn't look at Vinnie, he couldn't stand this happening again.

"Is that it? Huh? Is that what you wanted? C'm'on, Vinnie, tell me a story, tell me you're not a fag, make me believe you—" He was trying to say it gentle—Vinnie was still Vinnie, right? Even if he was a fag? But he didn't sound gentle to his own ears, and Vinnie wasn't saying anything. Sonny turned around to look at him.

Vinnie looked him square in the eye, no shame, no evasion—that was good, right? If it was real. "You're asking me if I'm a fag?" Vinnie's voice was very calm. Did that mean he was telling the truth? Sonny tried to remember what all the other lies had sounded like, only he wasn't sure which ones were the lies and which ones weren't, not all of them, anyway, or what Vinnie had sounded like when he'd said them. He'd just sounded like Vinnie. He always sounded like Vinnie.

"Yeah, I'm asking you."

"I don't know how to answer that. When we were in AC—it was complicated. You know that. Part'a me kept hoping you'd do something so I could hate you, to make my job easier. And part'a me— Yeah, part'a me would'a gone to your bed if you'd—"

He was going to keep talking all night, if Sonny let him, and there weren't that many ways of stopping him. The best way might be to cut off his air, and Sonny was doing everything in his power not to try that. He couldn't listen to any more of this—nonsense, he was losing it, he couldn't stop looking at the door, waiting for someone to break it in— _who the hell would want to break in the door?_

Maybe the best way to shut Vinnie up was to just cut off his audience. If Sonny wasn't there to hear him, if nobody was there to hear him, who the hell cared what Vinnie said? Well, Sonny did, but if he wasn't there, Vinnie would stop talking, right? Vinnie didn't talk to him when he wasn't there, not anymore, right? Sonny decided that was what he was going to believe.

He went over and got a shirt out of the closet, a pair of jeans and shorts from the chest of drawers, and started getting dressed.

"What are you doing?"

Sonny ignored him. If he didn't say anything, he wouldn't have to think.

"Where are you going?" Vinnie persisted. "Sonny?"

Sonny had his clothes on, except his socks; he didn't need socks, so he started looking for his shoes, trying to remember where he'd taken them off. He was looking under the bed when he felt Vinnie's hand on his shoulder. Sonny turned and slugged Vinnie, knocking him not down, but away. There were his shoes, halfway under the bed. He reached out to get them, and felt Vinnie's presence, if not his touch. "Get away from me, Vinnie." It wasn't a threat, just a simple warning. He looked around to see Vinnie sit down on his bed. _Good, that's good._ Sonny sat down next to him to put on his shoes, and when they were on, he started looking around for his coat, unable to remember what he'd done with it.

"It's in the closet, I hung it up for you. Where are you going?" Vinnie asked.

Sonny grabbed his coat and got out of the room as fast as he could, before anybody could knock down the door.

He left the hotel lobby, stepped out into the chilly autumn night, intending to walk around, but instead he ducked into the first bar he came to. He didn't really want a drink, so he ordered a light screwdriver and found a booth where he could see the door. He didn't think anyone was really going to try to break it down, but he wanted to keep an eye on it anyway.

_First I find out he's a cop, now I find out he's a fag, what the fuck next, I'm gonna find out he's a communist, a werewolf, a junkie, **what**? How the hell can I spend all this time with him and he can still lie to me, hide things from me, how is that, it shouldn't be possible! He tells Aiuppo I'm a fag, now he wants to suck my dick— Is he losing his mind?_

_Maybe he just never found it again. He gets himself up in the morning and gets dressed, he holds his own in the ring, he orders his own meals and feeds himself, and if you ask him a question, like the date, or who's president, he can give you an answer. And then out of a clear blue sky, suddenly he's queer? Fucking unbelievable. Next thing you know he's going to go back to that crap about being dead, an' he'll end up driving us into a telephone pole, or over an embankment._ Sonny drank some of his drink, which was nearly light enough to be plain orange juice. _Why would—_ He drank some more, ordered another. _Why would—_

_Why_

_would—_

__The door banged open, startling Sonny. He looked up and saw two couples coming in. No cops. _Why'm I expecting cops?_ He tried to think of the answer, then tried not to.

He didn't know. The waitress came with his new drink, took away his empty glass.

Three drinks later the alcohol wasn't relaxing him, and the lousy music playing on the jukebox was giving him a headache. He finished what was left in his glass, left more than enough money to pay the tab, and walked back to the hotel.

When he opened the door, he found the room dark, and when he turned on the lights, he discovered it was empty, too. Vinnie's jacket wasn't in the closet, his boots weren't kicked halfway under his unmade bed. There was no note. Everything else was still there, at least as far as Sonny could tell at first glance. He thought about going out to see if the car was still parked where they'd left it, but decided instead to search the room—or at least search Vinnie's stuff.

Nothing was hung up, of course; Vinnie'd thrown his clothes in a couple of drawers just neatly enough to allow the drawers to close all the way. He wasn't really sloppy, he just did it to annoy Sonny. Sonny opened the drawers and started pulling things out, socks and shirts and jeans and shorts, feeling in pockets, running his fingers along the seams. His first thought had been to see if the car keys were there, but once the jeans pockets were checked, it seemed pretty obvious Vinnie had them with him, and Sonny started looking for anything that might be hidden, though he had no idea what that might be. _Doesn't matter, he can't be trusted, who knows what he might really be doing, what the hell is wrong with me, trusting a cop? I must be losing my mind!_

"What're you doing?" Vinnie was standing in the doorway, watching him.

"Going through your stuff, see what else you might be hiding." He picked up a black sweatshirt, shook it out, ran his hand along the inside of it.

"Yeah? Be sure you don't miss the microfilm that's sewn into my socks." Vinnie dragged the desk chair over and sat down, watching him.

"You think this is funny?" Sonny tossed the sweatshirt in the pile of clothes he'd already looked through, picked up a pair of socks.

"I don't think I'd call it funny. It's certainly something, though. Crazy's a better word. What do you think you're gonna find?"

"With you, I got no idea." He rolled the socks together. "Could be anything. Gimme your wallet."

"We're doin' this again?" For a minute Vinnie's eyes, his posture, said no way in hell, and that was all right, Sonny'd take it away from him if he had to, punch him 'til his ears bled and take it, if he had to. Then he shrugged, pulled it out of his pocket, and threw it at Sonny. "I don't know what you think you're gonna find there; you bought me the wallet. You bought me the I.D. that's in it. You gave me the cash."

Sonny caught the wallet, pulled out the driver's license with Vinnie's new name on it, and the credit card Sonny'd gotten for him, all the I.D., dropped them on the floor. He let the mess of fives and tens and ones fall after them, along with a receipt from a gas station, and one from McDonald's that had been folded in with the money. There were two movie ticket stubs from a couple of weeks ago.

"That second ticket stub's yours, you handed them both to me with the change." Vinnie was using that quiet, patient, reasonable tone that had started more than one argument. "You can check the date—"

"Shut up." Sonny handed him back the empty wallet. "Where were you?"

"When?" Vinnie bent down, retrieving the license and credit card first and slipping them back into their slots, then going after the money, smoothing it out and sorting it by denomination.

" **When**? Just now, where'd you come back from?"

"I went out for a hamburger. Sonny, you just looked at the receipt." 

Yes, he had. But that didn't matter.

"Sonny, I got no idea what's going on—"

"Sure you don't, you never know what's going on, you're just some innocent—" _Don't slug him. Don't slug him, even though you want to, don't knock him down and pound his head on the floor—_ "Where're the car keys?"

Vinnie took them out of his jacket pocket, jingled them at him. "Are you going somewhere, or do you want to check my keychain for secret compartments and safety deposit box keys?"

Sonny didn't answer him, just took the keys and stuffed them in his own jeans pocket.

"Or maybe we're leaving, and the reason my stuff's all over the floor is, you were packing for me. Sorry I misunderstood, I thought you were ransacking my stuff when I wasn't here."

"You're here. Would you rather I went through your stuff behind your back? What do you care if your clothes are on the floor, you throw your clothes on the floor all the time, you sleep in your clothes, what difference does it make if they start off wrinkled?" He wanted to throw something at Vinnie, but he didn't have anything to throw but the car keys, and he was keeping those. He didn't want to have to chase him down again.

The drawers were empty. All of Vinnie's clothes were in a pile on the floor.

"Have you been in the bathroom yet, checked my toothbrush for hidden compartments?"

"Don't talk to me like I'm paranoid." Sonny poked him in the chest, punctuating his words. "You are not to be trusted." Sonny did want to go in and check the stuff in the bathroom; maybe there would be something there, something that would explain—

Explain what? Why he kept thinking cops were going to break down the door? He threw the deadbolt, put the chain on.

"I thought we were leaving?" Vinnie asked. He sounded worried, which was very, very good.

"You're not done packing." Sonny said, though he hadn't even started his own packing. He went in the bathroom, and Vinnie followed him.

"Be sure to empty the can of shaving cream, I've got a whole secret life hidden way down in the bottom—that's the best place to hide things."

Sonny punched him. Not very hard, just enough to shut him up. "You got any idea how different things would be if I'd checked you out better when I first met you?"

"Well, I'd probably be dead," Vinnie said, very calmly, as though it didn't matter to him. He sounded like he wanted to laugh, which didn't make any sense. "At the very least I wouldn't be here with you right now, so I don't really care about what other things would be different."

He was talking like an idiot, but at least he'd gotten the main point. "Yeah, you'd be dead. You know why you're not dead now?"

"Sure. I'm not dead because you didn't want to kill me."

"Yeah, yeah, exactly, that's it exactly. I didn't want to kill you when I should have. So stop acting like I should trust you when we both know I shouldn't."

"Yeah, but Sonny, the thing is, I'm not a cop anymore. Because if I was, either I'd've busted you right off for being a fugitive from justice or whatever you are, or I'm really wasting my time, because unless you've been sneaking out while I'm asleep, you haven't been doing anything illegal lately. So . . . what's the point?"

Sonny was going to hit him again, he was going to have to. "The point is, you lie to me again, you hide anything from me again, I am going to kill you. You got that?" He shoved Vinnie out of the way and left the bathroom, turning off the light.

"Yeah, Sonny, I got that. And I'm not lying to you, and I'm not keeping anything from you." He didn't sound sincere, or annoyed or worried. He sounded like he thought Sonny had a screw loose.

Sonny looked at him, kept looking at him, trying to see the truth, if it was there. "Yeah." He shrugged. "What else're you gonna say?" He looked at the door. It was still locked. Nobody was trying to knock it down.

"What else can I say? Look, you're either gonna have to take me at my word, or you're gonna have to kill me. Because you can't keep going through my stuff looking for proof I'm lying to you, because Sonny, you'll drive yourself nuts if you do."

He was probably right, but Sonny still wanted to hit him. "Sonny." Vinnie didn't say anything else.

"What?"

"Nothin'."

"Get your stuff together, get packed."

"We're leaving tonight?" Vinnie asked.

"Yeah, as soon as you're packed."

"Are **you** going to pack?" Vinnie asked, just to annoy him.

"Shut up." Sonny sat down on the edge of his bed, watching Vinnie as he scooped up the pile of clothes on the floor and dumped them on his bed, then went to the closet for his suitcase. Surprisingly, he started folding everything, instead of just throwing the whole pile in. When he was finished with his own clothes, he dragged Sonny's suitcase from the closet and started packing his clothes.

"Sonny." Shadows and suggestions and questions Sonny didn't want to hear were hiding in Vinnie's voice.

" **What**?"

"Nothing, skip it. You're gonna be making this trip too, right?" Vinnie asked, putting a shirt into Sonny's suitcase. "I'd hate to pack up your stuff for you for no reason."

Helpful, but he could be annoying, and he had a smart mouth. "Yeah." Sonny was tired. There was nobody outside the door, nobody was going to try to bust it down. He didn't know why he'd been thinking they were going to, but he was exhausted from worrying.

 

Vinnie had his coat on, was standing in the doorway, waiting, while Sonny walked around the room one last time, making sure he hadn't missed anything. Even if nobody was going to knock down the door, they still needed to go someplace else.

Sonny put on his coat and turned out the light.

"I hate ducking out in the middle of the night. Makes me feel like we're running away to avoid paying for the room." He wasn't talking to Sonny, though. He wasn't talking to anybody.

Sonny started to tell Vinnie to quit complaining, but then he didn't. Instead he grabbed hold of Vinnie's coat and pulled him back into the room.

Vinnie turned around and looked at him. "What—?"

Sonny slammed the door behind Vinnie, and pushed him against it. Vinnie dropped the suitcases and Sonny pushed against him, not—not anything, just against him, his hands under Vinnie's coat, feeling the warmth of him. The room was dark, but Sonny closed his eyes, leaned against Vinnie, listening to his breathing, which was uneven and strange, to his heart beating, which was ditto.

Sonny could feel his own heart beating, and it sounded as arrhythmic as Vinnie's.

Vinnie's arms settled around him, his big hands holding Sonny in various places, quieting him. He didn't say anything, he just pulled up his T-shirt so Sonny's hands were against his skin, and he put his hands under Sonny's clothes, too. Sonny felt like he could fall asleep standing right there.

After a while Vinnie untangled himself and unsnapped Sonny's jeans.

"You don't have to do this," Sonny said, feeling desperate, but desperate for what? He was dizzy; could the room spin around if it was dark and your eyes were closed and you couldn't see it? He was leaning against the door, which was strange; when had they exchanged positions?

"I know that," Vinnie said. "Of course I don't have to— Since when don't you like blow-jobs?"

"Who said—? That's not the point!"

"OK, then since when don't you like me?"

Sonny didn't know how he'd known that's what this was about. "Don't like you. I think you're outta your mind."

"Yeah, but you always thought that."

"Vinnie. This isn't about—" Sonny thought about it. _Maybe, if you're gay, that is what it's about._ He didn't like thinking about it, but dammit, it was Vinnie, so he thought about it some more. _What difference does it make? It's not like it's gonna make him **more** gay, right?_

"Will you please relax?" Vinnie said. "You're acting like it's the end of the world."

Sonny's hands found Vinnie's face in the dark, then his mouth found Vinnie's. Vinnie rested his forearm against the door above Sonny's head. His other hand, his left hand, was playing with Sonny's zipper, which was becoming more difficult, since there was less and less give to the fabric. Every so often his finger would graze Sonny in what Sonny was pretty sure was not an accident. "End of the world," Sonny said, and stroked Vinnie's face. "Yeah. Yeah, sure, yeah, go ahead."

Vinnie slid his zipper down one more time, kissed Sonny one more time, then went down on his knees.

He pushed Sonny's jeans down, and his underwear, and then his hand wrapped around Sonny's dick, pulling a little, then pulling harder, more deliberately. Vinnie's hand was very, very warm against his skin, and his tongue was even warmer. Sonny was trying to stay quiet, but Vinnie wasn't making it easy. He kept moving his hand, and licking everyplace his fingers weren't, and for some reason his other hand was squeezing Sonny's left knee, which was distracting in a way that Sonny really liked.

Slowly, very slowly, Vinnie took Sonny's dick into his mouth, careful and purposeful, using his tongue like a pro. _Has he done this—_

He squeezed Sonny's knee, pulled a little harder on his dick.

 _End of the world, end of the—_ Further into Vinnie's mouth, moving to his throat, Sonny was trying not to move, to let Vinnie set the pace, but it was excruciatingly slow. _He's never done this—_

Another squeeze, another tug, Sonny could feel the back of Vinnie's throat. His hips wanted to move so bad, but Sonny held himself still. He put his hand in Vinnie's hair, trying to anchor himself. _End of the world, end of the world, end of—_ Vinnie's hand moved from Sonny's knee to the inside of his thigh, and then his other hand was free because—

"End of the world—!" The words tore from Sonny's throat, his hips lunged forward, but Vinnie was ready for him, Vinnie's mouth was a dream, a fucking dream, a fucking **wet dream** come true. Sonny couldn't keep his hips still, but Vinnie didn't seem to mind, or if he did, Sonny didn't care, didn't— "End of the world," he whimpered, and Vinnie's big, strong hands squeezed his ass, held him up because his knees didn't want to anymore.

Vinnie didn't stop until Sonny said the word stop, said it several times. Vinnie released him as slowly as he'd taken him, and it **was** the end of the world, but not in a bad way. Then he was pinned between the door and Vinnie's big, warm body, Vinnie's big, strong hand holding him possessively, as though because he'd sucked his dick, he now owned it. It wasn't the worst feeling in the world.

"Did you still want to leave tonight?" Vinnie asked, and he didn't sound sarcastic or like he was gloating.

"Uh. Yeah. Yeah, I just need to." Sonny was pretty sure there was supposed to be more to that sentence, but he wasn't sure what.

"Why don't you sit down and wait while I put the bags in the car?" Vinnie suggested, and he sort of pushed Sonny toward the bed, where Sonny first sat, then lay down. He heard Vinnie laughing, then the door slammed.

 

When Sonny woke up, the sun was shining in his eyes. He was in Vinnie's bed, wearing nothing but his shirt, and Vinnie was lying next to him, fully dressed, one arm around him. He was snoring in Sonny's ear.

Sonny elbowed him in the ribs. "Wake up."

The snoring hitched, then resumed. Sonny elbowed him again. " **What**?"

"Get up."

"Time is it?"

Sonny didn't know. "Just get up, we gotta get going."

"Oh. Yeah." Vinnie didn't move, and in a minute he was snoring again. Sonny gave him another shot.

"What?"

"Get up! We're leaving!"

"You don't got your pants on, so you're going nowhere," Vinnie muttered. "I'll get dressed when you get up."

Sonny was pretty sure he meant that the other way around. He struggled out of Vinnie's unconscious embrace and got up. His jeans and shorts were draped over a chair; Vinnie must have done that, because Sonny was sure he hadn't done it. He put them on, and his shoes—when had he taken off his shoes? Had Vinnie done that, too?

Vinnie was still sound asleep.

Sonny went to the bathroom, brushed his teeth with the complimentary toothbrush and toothpaste. He wanted to shave, but his razor was packed and in the car. Instead he stripped and got in the shower. He didn't need a shower, but the water pounding against his head helped clear his mind.

It wasn't exactly doing that, though. Sonny's mind was going weird places; he was thinking about blow-jobs.

Blow-jobs were something girls did, or something they refused to do; the actual process, the mechanics, were something Sonny had never given much thought to, unless he happened to get a girl who was particularly bad at it. But when Vinnie was doing it to him, Sonny'd been thinking about it a lot—as much as he was able to think at all.

And he was thinking about it now, and trying not to.

 _Yeah, OK, so maybe Vinnie is a little gay. He's gotta be, right? Nobody who didn't wanna do that could be that good at it. And it was his idea._ Sonny couldn't imagine wanting to put a guy's dick in his mouth, not even Vinnie's. That proved something, didn't it? _But Vinnie really was good at it. How the hell did he get so good at it? Maybe he's just really good at paying attention. And so what if he thinks he's gay? It's not like anybody's gonna know. So he'll think he's gay. We don't have to talk about it. Hey, it's better'n thinking he's dead, right?_ Sonny's mind took an abrupt detour. _When was the last time Vinnie got laid? It's gotta be sometime before he got dragged off to El Salvador._ He counted backwards: _a year we've been doing this; before that he was home, I don't know how long; before that the hospital—_ Aiuppo hadn't said how long— _eight months they had him, and before that he was doing whatever got him in this mess in the first place, which probably didn't include picking up girls._ Sonny didn't have enough exact times to have numbers to add together, but it sounded like they were talking about at least a couple years, probably more. _We're gonna have to do something about that. Now that he's closer to his fighting weight an' he doesn't look like death warmed over anymore, girls'll be no problem at all. I just gotta get him to shave._

Sonny got out of the shower and dried off. He really did want to shave, but that could wait ‘til they stopped someplace.

Vinnie was still sound asleep. Sonny got a washcloth sopping wet and wrung it out on Vinnie's face.

"Hey!" Vinnie put one hand over his face, flailing out with the other to stop the water. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"I told you to get up," Sonny said, dropping the washcloth on Vinnie's face. "That was your wake-up call."

Vinnie muttered something, and he threw the washcloth at Sonny, but he got his ass out of bed.

"C'm'on, get your shoes on, I wanna get going."

Vinnie muttered something else, but Sonny ignored it. "Any idea where we're going?" Vinnie asked as though he didn't really care, but he was putting his shoes on.

"Hadn't thought about it. Someplace you want to go?"

"Nope. But we're right above Kansas. We could see what Dodge City really looks like."

Sonny smiled. That sounded just like Vinnie, his Vinnie, the real Vinnie. "Yeah. We could do that."


End file.
